Urdu Stories – Urdu Kahanian

The Dead End??

Saima, not more than 25, got married to Aslam, a father of 6 kids back then, when she was not more than 7 years old. She has no knowledge of how her father agreed on getting her married to a man this old. Currently she is a mother of 3 kids and 5 months pregnant. She lives in kachi abaadi near a well-known university in Islamabad. The house she lives in can never be owned by her, as it is the property of the government of Pakistan, but she still pays 3000 rupees every month for the house thinking that the house will be hers one day.
Aslam never supported Saima, financially or morally. She works at people’s houses to feed her kids. He comes home after months for a day or two, beats her up, spoils the kids and goes back to the place Saima doesn’t know of. He has divorced Saima many times, verbally, but she was too engrossed in her other problems to take the issue seriously.
It never is easy for a woman to live alone in our society; but Saima is brave enough to do so. She does face many problems but tries handling them with many tactics. Sometimes she lies and sometimes she just stays quiet. To keep herself safe from the evil monsters of the society, she had lied to everybody that her husband lives with her. She had told it to her neighbors that her husband comes home late and goes to work before dawn. This lie was keeping her safe from getting into many troubles.
One day she told the story to a religious scholar, and to her shock she was told that the divorce gets final if said 3 times. She has been divorced many times, by now; 2 of her kids and the unborn baby can be said to be illegitimate in this sense. Saima is now worried; very much worried about her being in relationship with a person who is no more her husband.
While Saima was busy figuring out about what she should do next, her husband came home quite infuriated and blamed her of being in illegitimate relationship with other men. He gathered a crowd and refused to accept the unborn baby. This way everybody around her came to know about the fact that she lives alone. This got her more worried. The monstrous men started approaching and harassing her the day Aslam left.
Now, Saima is not safe where she lives. Doesn’t know what to do and where to go. She doesn’t want to live with that man anymore. But Aslam will never leave her like that. Some legal action has to be done so that she gets rid of him completely. She needs a place to live where she can bring her kids up and live peacefully without being harassed by her husband. She needs help; but she is too naïve to go any NGO or human right’s activist and ask for legal assistance or shelter.
She feels helpless; talks about aborting the unborn baby and abandoning her older children. But the question remains; where can she go and live a peaceful life? Will she really be able to live without her kids? She can’t and doesn’t want to live with a man who never was good for nothing but what can she do once she gets rid of the man completely? She calls it a dead end. Is it a dead end in real or there is a messiah out there who can help her getting out of the situation?